Ere the youth had quite gained his footing, he gave him a violent push and sent him staggering back against the wall.

When Henry recovered his balance, Gascoyne was standing in the open doorway.
"Now, lad, are you ready ?" said he, a sort of wild smile lighting up his face.
Henry was so taken aback by this conduct, as well as by the rough handling which he had just received, that he could not collect his thoughts for a few seconds; but, when Gascoyne nodded gravely to his mother, and walked quietly away, saying, "Good-by, Mary," the exasperated youth darted through the doorway like an arrow.
If Henry Stuart's rush may be compared to the flight of an arrow from a bow, not less appropriately may Gascoyne's bound be likened to the leap of the bolt from a cross-bow: The two men sprang over the low fences that surrounded the cottage, leaped the rivulet that brawled down its steep course behind it, and coursed up the hill like mountain hares.
The last that Widow Stuart saw of them, as she gazed eagerly from the doorway of the hut, was, when Gascoyne's figure was clearly defined against the sky as he leaped over a great chasm in the lava high up the mountain-side.

Henry followed almost instantly, and then both were hidden from view in the chaos of rocks and gorges that rose above the upper line of vegetation.
It was a long and a severe chase that Henry had undertaken, and ably did his fleet foot sustain the credit which he had already gained.

But Gascoyne's foot was fleeter.

Over every species of ground did the sandal-wood trader lead the youth that morning.